To all,

A few days ago at about 10:00 a.m., I pulled up to the
self-serve fuel pumps at my home FBO.  I parked with
the tail facing the sun.  There was no wind so I left
the canopy open.  I did my usual; grounded the plane,
ran my credit card, pulled the fuel hose around to the
far wing tank from the pumps and began the fueling
process.  I looked up to note the fuel I had put in so
far and noticed a column of white smoke coming off of
the glare shield.  I immediately shut of the fuel
nozzle and set it down.  I hurried to the glare shield
and ripped it off (it is held in place with Velcro)
thinking that I had an avionics fire.  To my surprise
there was no fire under the glare shield.  That was a
good thing!

I had heard about magnification of the sun through the
canopy when open causing the material on the glare
shield to burn or scorch.  To me that meant this event
could only happen if the sun is shining throught the
glass.  However, I had not heard or thought that the
reflection from the back side, or inside (remember the
canopy was open with the tail of the plane facing the
sun) of the canopy could create enough heat to burn
the glare shield material.

The material on the glare shield was ultra-leather and
was treated so that it met the rules for use in an
airplane.  However, despite what it was treated with,
it got so hot that it burned through the ultra-leather
and into the foam under the ultra-leather.  Maybe a
better choice of words would be melted instead of
burned.  There was no visible flame just plenty of
white smoke.  Could it have caught fire under these
conditions?  I don't know, but when I have the glare
shield recovered I am going to put a match to the old
material to see what happens.

Art Jensen
LEG2  927J



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